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His jaw hardened, brow pinched. “Sounds like you plan to escape as fast as you can.”
She strived for polite, resisting the temptation to roll her eyes at the jab. She’d matured over the years, hadn’t she? She could handle an adult conversation with Hunter. “Is this your daughter?”
“Kinsley?” Hunter lifted the girl higher, grinning at her. The softening of his face caused a tightening in her chest. Once upon a time she’d craved that smile of his as much as oxygen. “No. She’s my niece. Autumn’s oldest. She’s pregnant with their second. I’m not married.”
The words dug like a knife and twisted. He could have added because of you to the end, just to make the torture more complete. It was true he’d asked her to marry him once. But they’d been young—way too young. And she’d wanted out. A chance to start over where she hadn’t been an immature teenager. Time to pursue her dreams. Was that so wrong?
Rachel still had hopes and aspirations that didn’t involve this town. After high school, she’d gone to Colorado for college and concentrated on her studies. Now she planned to focus on her career.
Houston was four hours away. Close enough that she could see her nephews whenever she made the drive and yet far enough that she could start fresh. Rachel wanted to be in Texas and somewhat close to her brother, his wife and their kids—they were her only immediate family, since their parents had passed away when she’d been thirteen. But she didn’t want to live in Fredericksburg. She enjoyed bigger cities. Liked everyone not knowing what she was up to and then gossiping about it.
For instance, just the fact that she was conversing with Hunter would cause a ripple that would echo across the smooth surface of this town.
“Hunter. Rachel.”
Their heads both snapped in the direction of the voice. The associate pastor, Greg Tendra, approached, sporting a grin that wasn’t mirrored on Hunter’s face or hers. He wore a green dress shirt tucked into black pants and no tie. The man was an inch or two shorter than Rachel, with raven curly hair, and the smell of spicy aftershave wafted with him.
“I’m glad to see you two have met.”
A laugh almost escaped from her throat, but she managed to stem it before it burst out. Being new to town, Greg obviously didn’t know any of the history between Hunter and Rachel. Fine by her. What had happened between them would stay in the past, as far as she was concerned. She didn’t need to confess to the pastor that they’d once had a vibrant relationship that had turned toxic. That when she did come home, she and Hunter couldn’t manage more than a few minutes—seconds, really—of stifled surface-level conversation.
But why would Greg care if she and Hunter had met? Unless...
Her stomach plummeted to her cherry-red-painted toenails. No. It couldn’t be. Dread crawled across her skin even as she tried to talk herself out of the idea.
“You’re my leaders for building the float with the youth group this summer. The brawn and the brains.” Greg’s face wreathed in a teasing smile as he glanced from Hunter to Rachel, and her world crumbled around her. She’d agreed to do one thing while home—help the youth build a float for the Independence Day parade. She’d said yes for a number of reasons. It would give her something to do while home. It would even look good on her rеsumе, and she needed all the help she could get to land this job. But mostly, she loved teens. All the snarky sides of them. Just like she’d been, way back when.
But she hadn’t realized the opportunity would come with Hunter attached.
She was supposed to work with him? Rachel wasn’t sure how to handle that. She only knew her plans remained the same: get the job she wanted and break out of this town. And just like the last time, she couldn’t let Hunter McDermott stand in her way.
* * *
Hunter’s ears were ringing. They felt like Kinsley had taken a pot and a pan and banged his head between them. His niece squirmed in his arms, and he realized that during Greg’s revelation, he’d been squeezing her pretty tight. When he spotted his sister, Autumn, talking to someone about ten feet away, Hunter placed Kinsley on the ground. A soft pat on her diapered bum had her scooting off toward her mom. When he was satisfied she’d been captured by his sister, Hunter turned his attention back to the strange turn of events happening in front of him.
By the look of pure shock on Rachel’s face, Hunter imagined Greg hadn’t informed her of who the other leader would be, either. He must have assumed they didn’t know each other. He couldn’t be more wrong on that account.
Would Rachel run now? She was certainly good at it.
Hunter winced. When had he turned so bitter? He was morphing into his father, and he didn’t like it.
He could be a gentleman and back out of helping. Rachel was the teen whisperer, not him. He was pretty much the brawn, like Greg had joked. Hunter had been asked to help with the float because he had a truck and a flatbed trailer. Two things that were needed. He’d agreed to help because he loved the youth group. He’d spent plenty of time there as a kid. It had become a safe place for him after his mom left, and he wanted to give back to that. He still did, but how could this ever work?
“We’re thankful to have the two of you helping. I honestly wasn’t sure what we were going to do. But now that we have you both, crisis averted.” Greg’s sigh of relief told Hunter even more than his words. Hunter only knew Greg a little, but the man had been thrown into numerous roles at the church, even having to cover for the youth pastor who’d left unexpectedly.
So much for Hunter’s idea of quietly disappearing. He wouldn’t leave the church or the kids abandoned like that. Building the float had been the highlight of a few of his summers, too. It was tradition, and he remembered how much he’d looked forward to it.
Hunter sought Rachel’s eyes, wishing he could read her like he used to be able to. Back when they’d been inseparable. When she hadn’t looked at him as if her dog had just died and he was to blame. What was she thinking? “Didn’t you say you were here waiting on a job?” How would she have time for something like this? How long would she actually be home?
“I am.” She toyed with a gold R pendant that hung on a slim chain around her neck, her fingers a stark white. “The school is doing more interviews and then waiting for a decision from the board. It might take a month or two.”
“We’ll take you as long as we can have you,” Greg chimed in.
That made one of them. Been there. Done that.
Greg’s hand momentarily rested on Rachel’s arm after his comment, and Hunter fought annoyance at the man and at himself for caring. What Rachel did or didn’t do wasn’t any of his business and hadn’t been for a long time. But Greg was young—maybe just a few years older than Hunter—and not blind. Rachel was beautiful. Tall, with straight, light blond hair that landed inches past her shoulders and mesmerizing green eyes. He’d always been partial to the subtle smattering of freckles on her face that he knew she despised.
Her beauty hadn’t been the reason Hunter had once wanted to hold on to her, but it had been a perk to look at her pretty face every day and see her smiling at him as though he made the stars shine at night. Only he hadn’t been enough to keep her here.
A quick glance at the ring finger on her left hand told him she wasn’t engaged or married. He assumed he would have heard if she was. Lucy Redmond—Olivia’s sister—used to feed him tidbits of information about Rachel. But even Lucy’s optimism couldn’t overpower the messy past between Hunter and Rachel or the fact that they wanted completely opposite things.
Rachel had always had one foot out the door of this town, and his life was here. Hunter should have known to leave well enough alone when they were younger and not pursue a relationship with her, but she’d been hard to resist.
Greg had continued talking, and Hunter forced himself to concentrate on the conversation. “The search for a youth pastor probably won’t wrap up until the end of July. But with you two handling the float, we only have the lock-in to cover, which I’m heading up, and then we’ll hopefully have a new youth pastor starting in August or September.”
The man looked pleased as punch. Hunter didn’t know what to feel. For so many years, he and Rachel had avoided each other. They’d never dealt with what had happened between them. It had just been easier to sweep their past under the rug. He blamed her for so much, and he was just as sure she held him responsible for what went wrong.
And now he sounded like his father—stuck. Unable to move on.
If there was one thing Hunter wanted more than a quiet, content life of ranching, it was to not turn into his dad. He would do just about anything to avoid following in his old man’s footsteps.
The three of them talked for another minute about when the float building was scheduled to start—this Wednesday. And what time—seven o’clock. Then Greg split off to catch up with someone else.
“I—” Rachel looked as though she’d witnessed a terrible car accident, a bit of green dusting her face. “I should go find my nephews and Cash and Liv. They’re probably waiting for me.”
She didn’t leave him any time to respond before she headed for the front doors of the church. Should he follow her? Make sure she was okay?
Nah. She wouldn’t welcome his intrusion.
Hunter watched her burst out into the sunlight, angst churning in his gut. The memories with Rachel flooded back, fast and furious. Before their relationship had gone so wrong, it had been good.
But what had stood between them six years ago still stretched between them now. That and a lot of hurt.
Hunter refused to turn into his father and grow resentful, holding on to the past. Which, if Rachel and Hunter were going to be working together with the youth, meant one thing. The two of them were just going to have to learn to be friends again.
Whether she wanted to be or not.
Chapter Two (#u0adc5e1f-428e-5664-a08d-98b8206d8c5b)
Ouch. Rachel jolted awake when her elbow met the wooden side of her nephew’s fire truck bedframe. She rubbed the spot and stared up at the ceiling.
The house Rachel had grown up in—where her brother, his wife and their two boys now lived—only had three bedrooms upstairs and a small office downstairs. Her four-year-old nephew, Grayson, occupied one bedroom, and Ryder, who was just a year old, had a slightly smaller one. Cash and Olivia were in the master. There was no guest room, which meant that, with her added into the mix, Gray was sleeping on Ryder’s floor so she could have his room. He currently considered the situation “very cool” and liked “camping” every night, but that wouldn’t last forever. Certainly not for the month or two she’d be home. And while she didn’t mind sleeping in a twin bed the shape of a fire truck, she was willing to live somewhere else and give Cash, Olivia and the boys their own space back. Except that, with her limited amount of time in town plus the fact that she should be saving money, she wasn’t sure how to solve the space dilemma.
“Auntie Rach, watch out, the stampede is coming!” Grayson tore into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed with her, causing air to rush from her lungs.
“Grayson Warren Maddox, I told you not to wake her.” Olivia paused in the doorway to Rachel’s temporary room. She blew a wayward hair from her forehead, looking a little frazzled for eight o’clock in the morning.
Rachel’s sister-in-law had aged well in the years since she’d met and married Cash. She wore khaki shorts and a navy blue T-shirt, her long mocha hair pulled into a ponytail. Even without makeup, she was striking. But more than her outside beauty, she was tender and compassionate with enough snark to make her likeable. The sister Rachel had never had. When Rachel had been in high school, Olivia had been her volleyball coach. She’d made a huge impact on Rachel and mentored her at a time when she’d been missing her parents and floundering.
“Sorry, Rach. Gray needs to get dressed and I had planned to sneak in and grab a few things without waking you. But it seems our boy had a different idea.”
Rachel captured Grayson and tugged him close, holding him in a tight grip that made him squirm and giggle. “It’s okay. I was up and hungry, and I love to eat little boys for breakfast.”
He squealed and tried to get away while she smacked a kiss to his chocolate hair that still carried the sweet, fruity smell of kiddo shampoo from last night’s bath.
“Auntie Rachel, will you take me riding?” When those hazel eyes peered up at her, Rachel didn’t stand a chance of saying no. Not that she wanted to. Part of her plan for the summer was to help Liv with the kids. If she was home waiting on a job, she could at least lend a hand. She’d already finished all of the requirements needed by the State of Texas in order to be ready for the new opportunity. Which meant now she needed to occupy herself while playing the waiting game.
“Yep. Just let me get dressed. Can’t ride in our pajamas.”
Grayson’s eyes lit up. “But that would be cool.”
Within a half hour Rachel had eaten a bowl of cereal and downed a cup of coffee. Now she and Grayson were saddled up and headed out. He looked so happy, sitting in front of her in the saddle, mini cowboy hat on his head. Her heart just about gushed out all the love it held. She really, really adored her nephews. They were one plus in being home this summer.
The two of them meandered out on the ranch, stopping to visit with Cash and a few of the ranch hands before riding to the east edge of the property.
Rachel had forgotten about the old house that popped into view. It had been part of a ranch that had gone under decades before, and her parents had bought the land as an addition to the Circle M. She remembered a story about a skirmish between her dad and Hunter’s, as they’d both wanted the property flanked by their two spreads. Her father had won the tussle, and she and Hunter had grown up on neighboring ranches.
Not that the McDermotts cared about this small slip of ranchland anymore. They were like land barons. They’d snatched up a number of smaller ranches over the years and now had a massive operation.
She directed Bonnie, the sweet mare they were riding, toward the house. A grayish hue tinted the white paint, as though the siding had given up fighting against the Texas sun years before. It looked deserted. No recent tire tracks. The grass around it was unruly and long.
Strange. Before she’d left for college, various ranch hands had rented the small house or negotiated living there as part of their pay. She didn’t know what Cash did with it now.
Movement to the east caught her eye. A man on a horse crested a hill on the McDermott ranch. Too far away to tell for sure who it was, especially with the cowboy hat, but the build could definitely be Hunter’s.
“Can we get down and look around?” Grayson questioned.
“Sure!”
Gray looked at her a little funny, and why wouldn’t he? She’d just shown a lot of excitement for poking around an empty house. But if it would help her avoid a run-in with Hunter—if that was him—she couldn’t resist.
Rachel still couldn’t believe the two of them were in charge of building the float with the youth. That would have been useful information to have when Greg had asked Rachel to help. Since their conversation at church yesterday, she’d gone over and over the situation, and she couldn’t see an escape route. She’d committed, and she wasn’t going to back out and leave the church strapped. Besides, she wanted to work with the teens. This would be a great opportunity to show the town she’d changed—that she wasn’t the same immature girl she’d once been.
Rachel wanted people to see her as who she’d become. Not the queen of bad decisions. A crown she’d once had the monopoly on.
She and Hunter would just have to function around each other. If they limited their interactions to Wednesday nights and the occasional sighting at church, Rachel would be out of here and on to her new life in no time.
Bonnie meandered to a stop on the west side of the house, and Rachel and Grayson slipped down from the saddle. Her nephew was more at home riding than most adults she knew. Definitely her brother’s child. When they’d been kids, Cash had always been out working with the horses, doing anything mechanical, helping move cattle and bumming around the ranch with Dad, even at a young age. The memory coaxed a smile. She was thankful the ache of missing her parents had lessened over the years, though it always remained with her.
What she wouldn’t give to be able to go back for one day and tell them how much she loved them.
Gray had already taken off around the front of the house, so Rachel secured Bonnie to the hitching post and trotted after him. The kid only had one speed—fast.
“Can we go inside? Maybe we’ll find a snake!” He’d already climbed the front steps and now stood on the small wooden porch. He tossed his hat on the stair railing, leaving a thick head of mussed brown hair visible. “Or a black widow spider. Or a tarantula.” His excitement increased with each suggestion, while Rachel’s mind screamed, Turn around. Fast.
She peeked through the front window. Papers, a turned-over chair, clothes and some other random items littered the floor. On the front porch, an abandoned wooden swing hung by only one chain. The other side scraped eerily against the floorboards in the slight breeze.
No one lived here. Not at the moment.
“We can try, bud, but I would assume it’s locked.” Rachel attempted to turn the knob, but it didn’t twist. Mostly to prove to Grayson that she’d tried, she shoved on the door with the palm of her hand. Amazingly, it eased open. The latch must have been broken. She pushed the door open wider, and it creaked and groaned as though arthritis crippled its hinges.
Before going inside, she gave the porch a good hard stomp, just in case any critters did live inside. Ignoring the creepy feeling that a spider was about to descend on her head, she took a tentative step inside. It smelled...musty. But daylight streamed in through the windows, illuminating a basic, but surprisingly roomy space. A small bedroom was visible through an open door to the right, and the kitchen area held a few cabinets and an avocado-green stove. An older fridge—the kind that would probably go for megabucks as vintage on eBay—had the doors propped open. Thankfully the contents had been cleaned out before it had been left unplugged.
“Whoa.” Grayson had followed her inside and now stood next to her, thumbs hooked through his belt loops as he studied the room. “This could be my fort. I’d pretend the bad guys were coming.” His fingers formed guns as he faced the door. “I’d have everything ready. They wouldn’t stand a chance against me.”
Just like Grayson to see the possibilities instead of the obstacles. At four years old—soon to be five—he had the sweetest optimism about life. Rachel would like to take a scoop of it with her wherever she went. She ran a hand through his soft hair. “Totally, buddy. You’d have the fastest guns, for sure.”
Grayson walked the open stretch of floor, boots echoing against the wood. He stopped at the end of the room, head tilted in concentration. “Think Dad would let me move out here?”
She managed to stem the laughter bubbling in her throat. “I don’t know about that, Gray.”
Though she could understand his interest. The place did have a certain charm—if she looked past the mess that had been left behind. For a family, it would be tiny. But for one or two people? Cozy. Quiet.
If she could get this place cleaned up, maybe she could move out here for the next month or two. She could give Olivia, Cash and the boys their house back while still being around to help and spend time with them. Rachel pressed the pause button on her rampant thoughts. The idea was crazy. The house might not be falling to pieces, but it would take too long if she attempted it on her own. Rachel could admit it was as tempting to her as Grayson’s fort was to him, though.
“Auntie Rachel, can I go outside?” Grayson had already zipped through the small bathroom and bedroom and must have gotten bored with the space.
Liv let Grayson play outdoors by himself for little bits of time, so Rachel thought the same rule could apply here. “If you stay within five steps of the house.”
“Five giant steps?”
With his little legs? “Deal.”
“Front and back?”
“Just front. That way I can keep an eye on you through the windows.”
His nose wrinkled as if to say he didn’t need that kind of supervision, but then he scampered outside.
She moved into the bedroom, watching through the old, white-wood-framed glass window as Grayson scooted down the porch steps, and then, true to form, counted out five long strides from the house. When he reached the limit, he bent down, grabbed a stick and began drawing in the dirt.
Rachel wandered to the east bedroom window and scanned the horizon. No more sign of the rider who had been there minutes before.
If it had been Hunter, he was gone now. Relief rushed in, cool and sweet.
Sometimes she looked back on what had happened with Hunter and wondered how it had all gone so wrong. How they’d switched from best friends to not speaking at all.
Most people didn’t know that Hunter had gotten it into his head to propose to her back then. She hadn’t even told her brother, simply because Rachel had known it couldn’t happen. Getting married at such a young age might have worked out for Hunter. He’d known what he wanted and that it was here. He was a rancher. It had always been this town, this life, for him.
But Cash had given up a lot for her, and she’d been working on maturing at the time. That hadn’t included eloping and throwing away a volleyball scholarship. Even for Hunter.
To say the least, he hadn’t understood.
Their relationship—even their friendship—had been crushed.
Something skittered across the wood floor and Rachel screamed. An old brown chair had been left behind in the corner of the room, and she ran for it, jumping up. It wobbled under her weight but thankfully held. Screeches continued to slip out of her as the mouse paused to stare her down, then ran for the edge of the room.
She shivered as it disappeared beneath some warped trim. Eek, that thing had freaked her out. Her heart stampeded, and she sucked in a calming breath, thankful no one was around to see her silly antics over such a tiny creature.
